Gaz's Horrible Halloween Of Doom
by Zim'sMostLoyalServant
Summary: After angering the spirit of Halloween, Gaz finds herself having what is probably the worst night of her life. Oneshot.


**A/N: Greetings everyone, and welcome to my third annual "anti-Gaz" themed Halloween submission. Why do I keep doing it? Because I admittedly have a bit of a fetish for stories where Gaz gets what's coming to her. But this one is different. How, you ask? Well, unlike my previous oneshots submitted this time of the year, this one **_**actually**_** has to do with Halloween. Oh, and it's more lighthearted – my attempt at actually writing something in true IZ style, as opposed to my more serious stories.**

**Anyway, enough of my ramblings. On with the show!**

**Disclaimer: I own nothing, nothing at all.**

XxxxxxxxX

**Gaz's Horrible Halloween Of Doom**

XxxxxxxxX

It was the day before Halloween, and people all over the city were preparing for the holiday. Costumes were bought for the children to go trick-or-treating, and for those older than them who wanted to get into the spirit of things; candy was bought in large quantities; jack-o-lanterns were carved; and decorations were put up. Of course, there were also the more obscure traditions that most people had forgotten existed, and were no longer practiced by anyone except those who were really into the paranormal.

Case in point, Dib Membrane, paranormal enthusiast, was in a cemetery as the sun began to set. Between two tombstones in front of him was a circle of rocks, each inscribed with a Celtic rune, in the middle of which was a miniature wicker man. The wicker man was filled with assorted meat products and candies, and the whole thing had been doused in kerosene. Dib gave the whole thing a once over, consulting the rather old looking book in his hands, before giving a nod of approval and reaching for a box of matches he'd left on top of another tombstone.

"What _are_ you doing?" a familiar voice asked right behind him, making him jump at least ten feet in the air. Turning around, he found his sister standing behind him, one eye cracked open to give him an inquisitive look.

"Gaz! What are you doing here?" Dib asked.

"Dad wanted me to drag you home. Apparently, this is one of those nights when he actually wants to at least _look_ like he's making an effort at having a 'normal' family dinner," Gaz explained, before glancing at Dib's handiwork and adding, "But seriously, what are you doing?"

"Oh, well, I'm reenacting this ceremony I found in this book I got from the Swollen Eyeballs' secret lending library," Dib explained.

"Secret lending library? Seriously?" Gaz asked with a raised eyebrow.

"Yeah, it's filled with all sorts of secret and forbidden knowledge that the other agents think shouldn't be out in the open," Dib explained, "I had to promise Darkbooty that I'd have it back within the week, otherwise something – and I quote – 'very unpleasant and not nice' would be done to me.

"As for the ceremony, this book says that it's an ancient Celtic ritual to bring good fortune. If one makes a burnt offering to the god Samhain in a cemetery at sunset on the day before All Hallows Eve, they'll be granted with great luck all that day. And I figure if I can combine that luck with how on edge Zim will be tomorrow – you know, 'cause of what happened last Halloween – then I'll be able to capture him. Finally, the world will see him for the menace he is, and-!"

"Oh, please," Gaz said with a snort, "You think burning some sausages and cough drops in a stick figure to some phony god who hasn't been worshiped in, like, a thousand years, is going to help you catch Zim?"

Dib blinked. "Well, when you put it that way…"

Not giving Dib a chance to finish, Gaz pushed him out of the way and walked up to the wicker man. With a swift kick, she knocked it over and began stomping on the remains.

"Ah! What are you doing? ! Don't do that!" Dib screamed.

"Saving myself a lot of trouble," she replied, "When this thing doesn't work, you're going to spend the next month whining about it, and I'm not in the mood to listen to it. Now shut up and let's go home."

"Actually, that's not what I'm talking about," Dib said, holding up the book, "The book says that if someone violates the ceremony, they'll invoke the wrath of Samhain and have the opposite effect on them. Which means because you destroyed the offering, you're going to have terrible luck tomorrow. But if you help me piece it back together, then maybe-"

This time, Gaz cut Dib off by grabbing the book and actually shoving it into his mouth. As he gagged on it, Gaz grabbed him by the collar and began dragging him away.

"I don't care about your paranormal, superstitious mumbo-jumbo," she snapped, "Tomorrow's my favorite holiday, and why? Because we get free candy, that's why. And I'm not going to let you spoil it with this magic junk. Now, let's go."

Meanwhile, on another plane of existence, Samhain, Celtic god of death and the harvest, glared down at the mortal children leaving the cemetery. When he had sensed that someone had been planning on carrying out one of his forgotten rituals, he had been overjoyed – true, this particular ritual itself was a load of bull, and he wouldn't really have granted the large headed child good luck, but he appreciated that _someone_ remembered the old practices of the holiday that had once bared his name. Too many these days forgot that this day had once existed to appease him in exchange for a good harvest, leaving out treats to please him and wearing masks to hide from him in case he was angered. Now, it was all about wearing ridiculous costumes and children accepting candy from strangers.

Samhain had learned to cope with it though, by reminding himself that at least people still celebrated his holiday to some degree. Besides, there were still some who remembered the old ways – which was why he was so happy when he had sensed that this big headed child had been preparing to give an offering (however pathetic it was). But then that purple-haired little brat had to go and ruin it. She was the type of person Samhain _really_ disliked – people who were at least mildly aware of the old ways, and yet refused to acknowledge them, casting them aside in favor of the modern ways.

Hmm, perhaps it was time to teach this child to respect the old ways. That ceremony she had interrupted and destroyed may have been an empty promise, but that didn't mean that the punishment for violating it had to be a hollow threat.

Oh yes, he decided, this disrespectful little girl was going to have a _very_ interesting Halloween.

XXXXXXX

The following night, as the sun was just beginning to set, Dib adjusted his stealth suit. He'd decided that he'd have to sneak into Zim's base without any magically-induced extra luck, therefore it didn't hurt to take as many precautions as possible – plus, it looked enough like a ninja/spy outfit that he figured anyone who saw him on the street would just think he was in costume and not pay him a second thought, and wouldn't call the cops or the mental hospital, like the last couple of times he'd tried this.

Checking his equipment one last time to make sure he had everything he might need, he walked out of his room and started walking down the hall. As he passed Gaz's room, he hesitated, before weakly knocking on the door.

"Uh, Gaz?" he called, "I'm going out now. Are you sure you're going to be alright?"

"Just. Go," Gaz snarled from the other side of the door. Deciding not to push his luck, Dib quickly hightailed it out of there, knowing that it would be a very bad decision to stick around his sister when she was as mad as she was now.

And why was Gaz so upset, one might ask? Well, earlier that morning, she had gone down to the costume shop where she had previously preordered a witch costume (she felt it was the most fitting for herself) only to find that there had been some kind of shipping error, and they had lost the outfit. So now, the only costume in her size that was left in stock was – and Gaz literally could not believe this – a fairy princess costume. A frilly, _pink_, fairy princess costume. If she hadn't needed a costume, and the clerk at the store hadn't promised to give her a full refund if she returned it the following day, Gaz would have ripped his head off.

Though, she had at least been able to vent properly over the situation – when Dib had found out about what had happened, he had just _had_ to open his big mouth and suggest that this was part of the "bad luck" she would be suffering from all day because of that stupid ritual she had interrupted. She had promptly beat him senseless and walked off; there was no such thing as luck, good or bad, and she wasn't going to listen to him ramble about some stupid black magic affecting her.

Back in the present, Gaz shifted as she looked at herself in the mirror; she looked absolutely ridiculous, and under normal circumstances she wouldn't even _think_ of going out in public in this outfit. If the fact that it was pink or had a puffy skirt weren't bad enough, then the cheesy fake butterfly wings on the back were what were _really_ humiliating about this thing. Unfortunately, she didn't have much of a choice; either she went trick-or-treating in this thing, or she didn't go trick-or-treating at all. And that was something she simply could not live with – after all, this was the only holiday where she was guaranteed obscene amounts of candy, which were her favorite food (next to pizza, of course). She was simply incapable of staying home and not getting her share.

So, taking one last look at her reflection, she decided to stop being a whiner about the situation and get it over with… and if anyone laughed at her, she'd throttle them with their own intestines. Satisfied with her course of action, she grabbed her candy bag and marched out the front door, intending to have an uneventful, yet fruitful, Halloween.

She couldn't have been more wrong about what was going to happen. Samhain causing her intended costume to get misplaced and leaving her with one she would be embarrassed in was just the tip of the metaphorical iceberg. The ancient god had plenty more in store for her… this night was just getting started.

XXXXXXX

An hour and a half later, when the sun had just about set, Gaz walked down the streets, avoiding eye contact with anyone, and clutching her mostly full candy bag closely. She'd made quite a haul so far, and because of that she was glad she'd talked herself into going out – but if one more person told her how "adorable" she looked in her costume, she'd make them sorry they were ever born.

A few more minutes and she'd head home, she decided; she had plenty of candy, and she wasn't sure how much longer she could stand being in this stupid outfit. That was the only train of thought she had, which was why she was distracted enough that she didn't even see the person she bumped right into, nearly knocking them both over.

"Hey, watch it!" the other person snapped. Gaz groaned as she recognized the voice, and looked up to greet him.

"Iggins," she hissed. Her one-time rival – currently dressed as the Vampire Piggy Hunter, naturally – froze as he now recognized _her_ voice, and his eyes bugged out more than usual when he looked at her.

"Oh, no, not you," he groaned. Then he took in more than her face, and his fear of her temporarily vanished as he snorted.

"Nice costume. Does the Tooth Fairy know you raided her wardrobe?" he asked.

"Want to get dropped down another elevator shaft?" Gaz replied with a glare that wiped the smirk off his face.

"Err, uh, bye," was all he managed to get out, before quickly backing away and turning to leave. However, as he did Gaz noticed something sticking out of his candy bag that made her eyes open in shock.

"Hold it!" she shouted, making him freeze in place, "Is that a Mondo Deluxe Poop Candy Bar?"

Iggins looked down at the ridiculously large candy bar sticking out of his bag, wrapped in the colors of Poop Cola Candy. Placing a hand over it protectively, he gave her a glare.

"Yeah, and it's mine! This isn't like the GameSlave2 – I got it fair and square, you can't-"

"Oh, shut up," Gaz snapped, "I'm not going to take yours. Just tell me where you got it."

"Oh," he said, blinking. Then, another smirk formed on his face as he said, "Okay. But first, get on your knees and admit I'm the superior gamer."

"What? !"

"Temper, temper," Iggins said, wagging his finger at her, "I don't know how many more of these they've got left. You don't want to waste any time, do you, Tinkerbell?"

_That_ was the last straw, and with a screech like a deranged banshee, Gaz grabbed Iggins by the throat with one hand and lifted him off the ground.

"Tell me now," she snarled to him as he struggled and choked in her grasp, "or the nightmare world I plunged you into last time is going to look like a day at the spa in comparison to what I do to you this time. Got it?"

Iggins nodded, then gasped out, "Three blocks over, down the street. Weird house; can't miss it."

"Good," Gaz said with a smirk, "And by the way – this is for calling me Tinkerbell!"

She then threw him over her shoulder, his bag spilling candy all over the street as he disappeared into the distance. There was the sound of breaking glass, screeching cats, and at least one shout of "My leg!", but Gaz didn't care, as she was already heading towards her destination. Minutes later, she was staring at the house Iggins had said was handing out the Mondo bars.

It was a rather rundown-looking house, with an overgrown lawn and faded paint on the walls, yet at the same time had a state-of-the-art security camera hanging off the roof and looking down at the front door. However, what really grabbed Gaz's attention was the sign sticking out of the lawn that read "Mondo Deluxe Poop Candy Bars Here". She licked her lips as she read that; the Mondo Deluxe Bar was legendary as far as candy went: nougat, caramel and peanuts all wrapped up in dark chocolate. Not to mention the fact that it was almost a foot long. If Gaz could get her hands on one, it would make wearing this humiliating costume worth it.

She was pulled from her thoughts when a couple of kids her age – one dressed as a Frankenstein's monster, the other as a mummy – rushed past her and up to the house. The camera panned to follow them as they ran up to the door and rang the doorbell, shouting "Trick or treat!" in such high-pitched kiddy voices that Gaz wanted to puke. A few seconds later, instead of the door opening, a hatch opened up in the side of the house and a large tube popped out. With a loud whoosh of air, two Mondo Deluxe Bars shot out, landing in the awaiting candy bags. The children stared dumbfounded for a moment, before smiling brightly and running off. Gaz watched all this with a raised eyebrow, then shrugged it off.

"Meh, I've seen weirder," she muttered, before walking up to the door and pressing the doorbell as the camera panned down to look at her.

"Trick or treat. Whatever," she said dully, as she held out her bag expectantly, "Just make with the candy already."

The tube popped out again, but nothing shot out. Gaz growled, and was about to shout out a threat, when she suddenly noticed that air seemed to be getting sucked _into_ the tube, rather than blown out of it. She barely had a chance to register this before the suction became like a giant vacuum, and with a shout of surprise Gaz was pulled off her feet and went flying into the tube. She tumbled through the tube for a minute or two, before finally tumbling out the other end and landing with a thud on a hard surface. Shaking her head to reorient herself, she saw that she was in a glass box with sporadically placed small air holes, a metal framework, and a hatch in the top that shut itself as the tube pulled away and before Gaz could take advantage of the opening. With a jolt, she realized it was a containment cell, like the kind used in her father's labs for test animals that Dib usually borrowed to catch Zim (or whatever other paranormal thing he was chasing at the time).

"What the hell? !" she screamed, as the realization that someone had just tossed her in a cage hit home.

"Finally!" a voice shouted, making Gaz jump. Turning to look through the side of the cell, she saw a man off to the side of the dark room they were in. He was moderately tall, wearing a trench coat and sunglasses, and sitting on a stool with a laptop in his… well, his lap. Gaz also noticed a box at his feet, positioned next a second tube, separate from the one that had sucked her in and spat her out into the cell.

"Finally!" he repeated himself, "After all these years, I've finally caught a live specimen! I knew these would be the perfect bait!"

Reaching into the box, the man pulled out a Mondo Deluxe Poop Bar, before tossing it up into the air in his excitement. It landed near the other tube, which activated automatically and sucked up the bar; it shot out the exit tube and hit a trick-or-treated who was about to ring the doorbell right in the eye (Gaz couldn't see this, of course, but she could hear his shout of pain and surprise clearly enough through the walls). This seeming act of waste shocked Gaz out of her stupor, and she glared at him.

"Hey!" she snarled, "I don't know who you are, or what you think you're doing, but you have ten seconds to let me out and give me one of those Mondo Deluxe Bars, or I will make your life a living nightmare!"

"They all said I was crazy," the man continued ranting, either ignoring or not hearing Gaz's threat, "They all said, 'Oh, Bill, there's no such thing as Sugar Fairies that come out on Halloween'. Oh, yeah? Well, who's laughing now, huh?"

Gaz raised an eyebrow. Bill… where had she heard that name before? Oh, right, he was that lunatic Dib had been partnered with for Career Day; Gaz only remembered Dib complaining about that because she found it hard to believe there was anyone crazier than her brother. Then, something else Bill had just said registered with her.

"Sugar Fairies? Are you kidding?" she asked. Bill finally seemed to notice that she was talking to him, and turned to sneer in her direction.

"Don't play innocent with me, little miss fairy," he replied, "I know all about how your kind come out on Halloween in search of sugary snacks. That's why I used this brand of candy bar as bait; I knew you wouldn't be able to resist it, and when one of you showed up to claim it, I'd be able to capture you and finally prove your existence to the world."

"Then how come you didn't grab any of the other kids who stopped by here?" Gaz asked though gritted teeth. What in the world had she done to deserve being locked up by this nutjob while someone like Iggins got to walk away with the ultimate candy?

"Oh, they weren't fairies," Bill said offhandedly.

"This is a _costume_, you lunatic!" Gaz snarled, "I'm not actually a fairy!"

"Oh, of course it is," Bill said sarcastically, "Do you think I'm stupid or something?"

"Want an honest answer?"

"Ha, ha," Bill deadpanned. He then pressed some buttons on his laptop, and a wall pulled away to reveal a black van in what appeared to be the house's garage. A robotic arm then lowered from the ceiling, grabbed Gaz's containment cell, and moved it over to the open side door of the van, placing it inside.

"What do you think you're doing?" Gaz growled.

"There's a paranormal investigators' convention next county over," Bill explained as he placed his laptop and the candy box (for some reason) on the shotgun seat up front, "If I hurry, I can get there before it ends and show you off to everyone – and then they'll see, once and for all, that I was right!"

Gaz's eyes widened; there was no way she was going to let herself get put on display for a bunch of freaks that made Dib _and_ Zim look sane by comparison.

"Listen to me, you psychotic freak!" Gaz yelled, "Let me go right now, or I swear I will plunge you into a nightmare world from which-"

Her usual threat was cut off as Bill slammed the van door shut. Chuckling to himself, he then hopped into the driver's seat and took off. He knocked over the sign advertising the Mondo Deluxe Bars, but he didn't care – they'd served their purpose of luring out a Sugar Fairy for him to capture, so he didn't need this trap anymore. And the best part was, he still had some left, so on the off chance this fairy escaped, he could always try again.

'Not that she's getting out of course,' he thought with a smirk.

XXXXXXX

Twenty minutes later, having run over roughly a dozen people, five mailboxes and a cow that was just sitting in the middle of the road for some reason, Bill pulled over to the side of road after hearing loud crashing sound coming from the back of his van. Unfortunately, when he'd purchased the van he'd made several modifications to it for his purposes – including a wall between the back of the van and the driver's seats for protection, so now he couldn't see what was going on. Reaching for his tazer, he cautiously exited the van and moved towards the side door. Taking a deep breath to prepare himself, he flung the door open – and was hit head on by the containment cell, which now had a large hole smashed out of one side.

As he collapsed to the ground in a heap, Gaz dusted her hands off as she stepped out of the van. She gave the nearly unconscious Bill a kick in the side of the head, then grabbed his tazer and shocked him with it for good measure. When he passed out, she tossed it aside, then reached back into the van and grabbed her candy bag. She then walked up to the front of van and pulled out the box of Mondo Deluxe Bars. Considering it for a moment, she dumped the entire contents of the box into her bag – somewhere between ten and fifteen bars.

'Well, that should make up for what I've been through tonight,' she thought with a smirk. Said smirk vanished from her face when she took a look around to get her bearings.

The van was parked on the side of some dirt road in the middle of the woods – Bill had been driving so fast he had been able to get much further past the city limits than he should have been able to in the amount of time he had.

Spying city lights in a gap between several trees, Gaz looked back and forth between the gap and the dirt road; if she cut through the woods, she'd be able to get back to the city (and thus, home) a bit sooner than if she followed the road, which looked like it winded quite a bit. The shortest path between two points, and whatnot.

Growling at the fact that either way she was going to have a long walk either way, she kicked Bill once more for good measure. Then she took a calming breath and began her walk home, making her way through the trees. Meanwhile, Samhain looked down on her from his plane of existence and frowned. His plan had been to have that bug-eyed child lure Gaz to the house being used by the deranged paranormal investigator, so that he would be fooled by her costume and capture her. Then, he would have taken her to that convention of his – his theory of her being an actual fairy would have been pretty quickly debunked, obviously, but Gaz still would have been pretty humiliated, thus filling Samhain's revenge. He hadn't counted on her being strong enough to break out of that cage.

Now, he was going to have to improvise.

XXXXXXX

About forty-five minutes later, Gaz was gritting her teeth so hard they felt like they were going to crack. This was taking much longer than she had thought, and her legs were killing her. But she had just reached the top of a hill from which she could clearly see the city and, more importantly, her neighborhood. Another ten minutes or so, and she would be down there, and then it would just be a few more minutes after that until she was home.

"Dib better be home," she muttered, "because I need to vent about this, and his giant head should be the perfect punching bag."

Chuckling at the thought of what she'd do to her brother, Gaz began to walk down the hill… at which point her foot snagged on a root that she hadn't noticed before. Giving a yelp of surprise, she waved her arms in an attempt to regain her balance, but failed and went tumbling to the ground. Due to the slope of the hill, her momentum continued, sending her rolling down the hill in a ball of pink and purple until she finally crashed into a bush at the bottom. The good news: the bush cushioned her fall. The bad news: it was a thorn bush.

Gaz bit her lip to keep from screaming as several dozen thorns poked into her arms, legs, and back. Only a few of them broke the skin, and even then those were barely more than scratches, but it was still not a pleasant experience. She attempted to pull herself up, being careful to avoid grabbing any more thorns, only to find that many of the thorns had pierced the thin material of her costume, thus holding her down. With another growl of irritation, she yanked on the bush fronds as hard as she could, pulling herself to her feet, at the cost of the thorns ripping several small holes out of the costume, as well as most of one of the fake wings.

"Great, just _great!_" she snarled, "Now how am I supposed to get my money back? That stupid store isn't going to give me a stupid refund if the stupid costume's damaged!"

Stomping over to her candy bag, which had landed a few feet away from her, she looked up at the heavily overcast sky.

"Could this night get any worse? !" she shouted hypothetically.

Unseen to her, Samhain smirked to himself; someone really should have taught this girl about tempting fate. With only the slightest application of his power, lightning flashed amongst the clouds, and within seconds it had begun raining heavily. Gaz stood in the downpour, in a shocked silence at the latest turn of events, before screaming out a long string of obscenities someone her age really had no business knowing.

She continued cursing even as she marched through the pouring rain, clutching her bag to her body in an attempt to keep her haul as dry as possible… and that worked about as well as one would expect in this weather. Even without the holes in her costume, the fabric was too thin to keep out the water, and she was soaked to the bone in minutes. And what was worse, the ground under her feet was soon turned to mud, which just as quickly soaked through the ballet shoes that came with the costume, so by the time she actually got onto the concrete streets of her neighborhood, her feet were already coated in muck.

A few minutes later, she finally found herself just across the street from her house.

"Finally," she muttered, breathing a sigh of relief at the fact that this horrible night was almost over, and that soon she'd be able to salvage what she could of her candy.

And that was when a truck zoomed down the road, hitting a large muddy puddle near Gaz as it did so. This of course resulted in a large splash which, naturally, hit Gaz, leaving the rest of her body coated in almost as much mud as her feet already were. This, in turn, lead to another string of load curses as Gaz bolted across the street in fury, nearly knocking the front door off its hinges as she kicked it open.

Dib, who was sitting on the couch – and looking a little singed; Zim must have been too much for him, as usual – jumped as his sister entered the house, her costume torn, covered head-to-toe in mud, and with murder written on her face. Common sense was telling him to run, but as usual, he didn't listen to it.

"What happened to you?" he blurted out.

That snapped what little self-control Gaz had left, and moments later Dib found himself inside the wall, head sticking out of the kitchen side, while his legs kicked uselessly in the air over the living room floor. As he tried to figure out what had just happened, Gaz grabbed him by the hair scythe and lifted his head to look her in the eye.

"Listen carefully Dib," she hissed, "I've had, hands down, the worst night of my life. Do yourself a favor and stay in here until tomorrow. Oh, and shut up."

With that, she dropped Dib's head, and he obediently kept his mouth shut. Satisfied that _something_ was finally going right for here tonight, Gaz left her brother in the wall, and marched up to her room.

XXXXXXX

After a nice, long, hot shower, Gaz slipped into a fresh set of clothes and tossed her costume into the trash – it wasn't like she'd be able to return it now, anyway. She then grabbed her still mostly soaked candy bag and made her way back down to the living room, where she was surprised to see her father coming up from the basement with a box in his hands.

"Ah, hello daughter!" Professor Membrane said as he noticed her, "I was just grabbing a few things I left here in the house lab. How was your celebration of this non-scientific holiday I only recognize because of its lack of Santa?"

"Fine," Gaz grunted; she wasn't about to whine about her night to her father. He probably wouldn't even hear what she was saying, anyway.

"That's nice," the professor said in a tone that implied that he really hadn't been listening to her, "By the way, why is your brother in the wall?"

Gaz looked over to where Dib was still stuck in the wall where she'd left him.

"I think he was looking for ghost mice again and got stuck. _Right,_ Dib?" she said, directing the last bit towards her brother in a tone that warned him not to even try and tell their father what had really happened.

"Uh, right Gaz," Dib replied meekly.

"My poor, insane son," Membrane sighed with a shake of his head, as he went back to sorting through the box for whatever he was looking for.

Gaz, meanwhile, began her own sorting through her candy. As she'd feared, much of it had been soaked and ruined by the rain, but it seemed as though her luck (that she still didn't believe in) was finally turning. Some of the candy had survived, including several of the Mondo Deluxe Bars she'd taken from Bill. Smiling, she grabbed one and tore the wrapping off – after everything she'd gone through, this would be the perfect pick-me-up. At least, that was what she thought, right up until she took a bite, only for a jolt of pain to shoot through her mouth.

"Gah!" she cried, dropping the bar and spitting out the chunk in her mouth. Membrane glanced up from what he was doing to give her what may have been a concerned look (thought it was hard to tell with his goggles).

"Is everything alright daughter?" he asked.

"My mouth," Gaz groaned, clutching her mouth and trying to ignore the pain in it.

Membrane frowned (though again, it was hard to tell), and searched through his pockets for a few moments before pulling out some sort of scanning device. Pointing it at Gaz's mouth, he flicked a switch, causing the device to beep and flash for several seconds before some writing appeared on the screen attached to its side.

"There's your problem – it seems you have several cavities," Membrane said, reading the results, before pocketing the device.

"Luckily for you, one of my several Ph.D.s is in dentistry," he added, "So I know how to deal with this. First thing's first, of course, and that means no more sweets for the time being."

Before Gaz could even process what her father had just said, he grabbed her candy off of the table and dumped it into a nearby trashcan.

"What? !" Gaz shouted, ignoring the fresh pain that sent through her mouth, "Do you know what I had to go through tonight to get all that? !"

"I'm sure you're exaggerating," Membrane said dismissively, "Now then, luckily for you I just happen to have a prototype of a new type of dental surgery equipment downstairs in the lab that I've been meaning to test. And as they say, no time like the present!"

"Wha- wait a minute!" Gaz protested, not wanting to be a guinea pig for one of her father's creations. However, he ignored her protests, picking her up and carrying her towards the basement stairs.

"Now, now, daughter," he said, slightly condescendingly, "A little oral surgery never hurt anyone. This is for your own good, and for the good of SCIENCE!"

With that last dramatic shout, the professor carried his still squirming daughter down the stairs. Dib, still stuck in the wall, merely raised an eyebrow at this turn of events, while on the astral plane Samhain was laughing his non-corporeal butt off. Perhaps that last bit, causing cavities to appear in Gaz's mouth just as she was about to enjoy her candy, was a bit cruel. But perhaps now she would know not to disrespect powers she didn't understand. And if she _didn't_ learn her lesson…

Well, traditions had to start sometime, didn't they?

XxxxxxxxX

**The End**

XxxxxxxxX

**A/N: And done. Now, there are a few things I want to say before wrapping up:**

**1) This is the first time I've ever actually written Membrane in any of my stories. How did I do?**

**2) To my knowledge, that ritual at the beginning of the story was total bull. I just cobbled together the bits and pieces I know of Celtic/Druidic culture into something that fit the scenario. I doubt I offended anyone, but if I did, I am sorry.**

**3) Some of the elements from this story were taken from a side story of a Halloween story JoeMerl did a couple of years ago. Just in case anyone else has read it, I don't want to be accused of ripping him off.**

**4) Oh, and as for everyone waiting for an update on GA, sorry for the long wait. I got serious writer's block on it, but I will be trying to get the next chapter out soon.**

**That's all I have to say. Other than that, Happy Halloween, and please read & review!**


End file.
